https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_destroyed_libraries#Hu...
What file format? What storage medium?
Good archives are all about the long, very long term. Sometimes the "we're borrowing it from our ((great-)grand)children" long term.
The storage mediums we plebeians use in our daily activities are absolutely not archival-quality.
Stories abound of institutions struggling to access old numeric archives. Here's just one off of the top of my head: https://www.nsa.gov/Press-Room/Press-Releases-Statements/Pre...
The other aspect is that archivists are routinely underfunded. The scanning equipment and storage systems are expensive. The archivists need to be trained to use them. As something that is by nature rarely used, it routinely gets the budgetary short straw.
thaumasiotes•7h ago
The document was already known to exist and we had copies. This is the finding of the original, an open letter stating that 116 Baptist (?) ministers "disapprove and abhor the institution of American slavery".
The American Baptist church had already made efforts to locate it in various university libraries. It turned out to be stored in their own archives.